Martinez vs. Chavez Jr.: Top Rank Announces September 15th Superfight

Mere hours after his spectacular TKO victory over Andy Lee in El Paso, Texas, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. found out who his next opponent would be—recognized middleweight champion Sergio "Maravilla" Martinez.

Top Rank Boxing, which is headed by promoter Bob Arum, has announced on their Twitter today that Chavez Jr.  (46-0-1 32 KO) will meet Martinez (49-2-2 28 KO) on September 15th at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas.

The fight will be for Chavez's WBC Middleweight championship (Martinez is the WBC Diamond Middleweight champion), but more importantly, will determine who is the best middleweight in the world.

That is an honor that Martinez has held since dispatching of Kelly Pavlik in April 2010 and followed up with a devastating knockout of Paul Williams in November of the same year.

Chavez Jr. has been criticized for avoiding top flight competition, but helped to silence many of his critics with a spectacular performance against rugged Andy Lee last night on HBO.

Chavez struggled in the early rounds as Lee maintained distance, but by the fourth he began closing the gap and landing hard shots to the body which broke Lee down. The seventh round stoppage was perhaps the most impressive of his career and had most ringside clamoring for the fight with Martinez.

In his last fight Martinez faced a determined Matthew Macklin at Madison Square Garden on St. Patrick's Day. Macklin was able to drop the champion in the seventh round but wilted himself to the pressure and was stopped in the 11th round.

Interestingly, the fight, which will be shown on HBO PPV, will be in direct competition with a Showtime PPV card featuring undefeated Canelo Alvarez squaring off with Victor Ortiz in the main event. The two fights will be taking place only a couple of miles apart as Alvarez and Ortiz will square off at the MGM Grand.